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by Gilbert Rozman
Gilbert Rozman is Musgrave Professor of Sociology at Princeton University and a senior fellow at FPRI. He is the author of many books on Russia, China, and Japan, writing extensively on how each of these countries perceives the others; his books include Russia and East Asia: The 21st Century Security Environment (M.E. Sharpe, 1999) and Japan and Russia: The Tortuous Path to Normalization (St. Martin’s Press, 2000). This article is based on Mr. Rozman’s Luxenberg Memorial Lecture on Japan given at the Foreign Policy Research Institute on October 19, 2002. This article is reprinted from the Summer 2003 issue of Orbis, FPRI’s quarterly journal of world affairs.
On August 27, 2002, when emissaries from the Bush administration met with Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, each side had a well-guarded secret to reveal. Koizumi informed the Americans that he was about to announce that he would visit Pyongyang in mid-September, creating the first summit between the leaders of Japan and North Korea. In turn, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage announced that the United States possessed evidence that the North was secretly enriching uranium, in violation of its 1994 agreement with the United States, and despite other assurances it had discontinued all nuclear weapons development. It seems unlikely that either was happy to hear the other’s news. Japanese policy makers may have found it hard to grasp that North Korea was so duplicitous; that the United States was so determined to pressure North Korea to abandon its dangerous behavior; and that Japan, as a U.S. ally, had so little leverage to conduct an independent foreign policy.
Likewise, despite earlier hints that secret talks were proceeding between Japan and North Korea, the news that Prime Minister Koizumi was discussing large-scale economic assistance to the North and would proceed with his trip also had to be disconcerting for the Bush administration, coming as it did just as Washington was launching a campaign on two fronts— the UN Security Council and the U.S. Congress— for arms inspections in Iraq and, should they fail, a war to topple Saddam Hussein. To appreciate the differences in the U.S. and Japanese perspectives, we should start with Japan’s reasoning.
With a combination of bland leaders, passive diplomacy, and, since the early 1990s, the effects of a stagnant economy and a dispirited public, Japan leaves observers expecting little from its foreign policy. Observers have become accustomed to the same issuesresurfacing without any resolution, be it Russo-Japanese relations, which are still troubled by a territorial dispute; Sino-Japanese relations, which have never been able to overcome differences in how they view history; South Korean-Japanese ties, where mutual mistrust bars close cooperation; or even the U.S-Japanese alliance, which consistently falls short of the gold standard of U.S.-British relations. Despite the abnormality of its postwar status and the volatility of its regional setting, Japan appears to be going nowhere in foreign relations except to support the United States under pressure, as after 9/11/01 and again in 2003 in the war against Iraq.
Experts inadvertently reinforce this static and passive image by arguing that Japan has few options. Since the end of the Cold War, U.S. experts have been focused on restructuring U.S.-Japan security relations and resolving concerns about inequality in the alliance, without convincing arguments that this goal can be reached or that the alliance is drifting toward danger.[1] Many have recognized some transformation of thinking in Tokyo, labeling it “realist” as the idealist left and pacifist thought have receded, but they see Japan acting reluctantly and do not expect any important change in foreign policy to result.[2] The contrast is often made between right-wing nationalists, who seek an independent foreign policy, and the mainstream, which accepts the U.S.-Japan security treaty as the cornerstone of foreign policy,[3] even as U.S. analysts dismiss the Right as being of little consequence. These views may all be one-sided: correct in foreseeing no radical shift away from ties to the United States, but neglecting persistent unease in Japan that points in a new direction.
A different image can be drawn from scrutinizing the debates inside Japan: that of a country repeatedly striving to gain an independent voice on matters of East Asian security, even if it has so far been unsuccessful in that endeavor. Reviewing Japan’s quest gives us a different perspective on Japan’s relations with the United States, especially since 9/11, as the United States vaunts its unrivalled power. It can also shed light on the hopes behind Koizumi’s trip to Pyongyang and the potential for future diplomacy.
To those who expect little from Japan’s diplomacy, Koizumi’s announcement that he would go to Pyongyang to meet the North’s Kim Jong Il came as a surprise. Soon, however, those who downplayed the importance of the announcement of the trip outnumbered the few observers who were either alarmed or delighted with what they saw as a rare independent move. The doubters recalled the June 2000 summit between Kim Jong Il and South Korea’s then president Kim Dae Jung, when all the hoopla proved ephemeral. It had been a long time since a Japanese leader made a bold breakthrough at a summit, and after seeing Koizumi fail to deliver on much of his domestic agenda, many doubted that he would do so in the global arena. The initiative seemed to be largely in the hands of the Bush administration, which, after labeling the North part of the “axis of evil,” seemed unlikely to approve a Tokyo-Pyongyang deal. Finally, they noted that the main agenda item was the return of abducted Japanese citizens, an issue of great emotional appeal inside Japan but tangential to significant security questions.
After Koizumi’s September trip, a fifth reason arose to discount the momentary candor of mutual apologies and pledges of future cooperation. When the United States dispatched Assistant Secretary of East Asian and Pacific Affairs James Kelly to Pyongyang two weeks later, it appeared that a coordinated approach long urged by Seoul was under way to explore just how far the North would compromise on security in order to achieve its goals for economic reform and political recognition. At the summit Kim admitted the kidnappings in the 1970s and 1980s of 13 Japanese citizens, 8 of whom were dead. As the Japanese public became absorbed in the tragic stories of the families of kidnap victims, it paid little heed to geopolitical issues. It again seemed that a Japanese leader’s initiative would bring no dramatic departure from Japan’s pattern of reliance on U.S. leadership. On October 29-30, when Japanese diplomats met with their North Korean counterparts in Kuala Lumpur, the same message emerged: the North rebuffed Japan’s interest in discussing its nuclear weapons program. But what many observers have missed is a continuing thread in the evolution of Japan’s post-Cold War foreign policy, which leads to a different conclusion about the significance of Koizumi’s trip to North Korea. Looking back, we can identify a streak of failed breakout strategies aimed at giving Japan an independent voice on the global stage. Each strategy has had implications for U.S.-Japanese relations and provides us with clues about how Japan wants to reshape the overall security of East Asia. The old Left, though fading, has long dreamed of a breakout strategy. The resurgent Right has pressed for it, although often differing on how to proceed. Mainstream as well as maverick Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) leaders are tantalized by its potential impact on public opinion. The goal is shared across the political spectrum, even if no single approach has appeal.
Japan’s motive for distancing itself from the United States to an important degree but not breaking the bonds of alliance lies less in any new perception of a military threat than in lingering discomfort over its absence of a strong voice in international circles. Many have a sense that, as politician Ichiro Ozawa put it, Japan is not a “normal” state.[4] So far they cannot agree on what it takes to become “normal,” but each time hopes arise for a breakthrough with one or another significant foreign partner, the nation rallies around the prospect that it will finally happen. The chances are slim that Tokyo could cut a deal with the outcast Pyongyang. They rise considerably, however, if Pyongyang really determines to bargain its WMDchips for a large economic payoff and recognizes the promise of multilateral diplomacy, in an age of unwelcome unilateralism. The North’s choice remains an enigma, leaving Tokyo restlessly awaiting the right opportunity.
In the first years of the Gorbachev era, as the United States and the Soviet Union were advancing towards arms agreements, official Japanese thought was still focused on a strategy of becoming an equal partner in managing the Cold War in Northeast Asia. Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone’s famous depiction of Japan as an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” was just one of the first salvos in that strategy.[5] The bubble economy raised hopes that, without having to devote much more than 1 percent of its economy to the official military budget, Japan would easily outdistance all other U.S. allies in high-tech warfare and come to have the industrial establishment and economic wherewithal to become the indispensable ally. Located in the most dynamic but still unstable region in the world, Tokyo could expect growing parity with Washington.
To Tokyo’s disappointment, this strategy lost credibility as the Cold War ended. Japan did not have the three things it most wanted: the end of a state of dependency, leverage in international relations, and a status of leadership befitting its expected continued superior economic growth. Through 1992 Japan explored three alternative strategies for putting the abnormal stage of “defeated power” behind it.
Japan-Russia. The first option was to reach a deal with Russia to return all four islands, justifying both a celebratory mood that the era of victimization was over and a great-power partnership that would increase Japan’s leverage. Hints that Japan would pay handsomely (over $25 billion, according to stories early in 1991),[6] intensive wooing of Gorbachev and Yeltsin, and a flood of writings about the growing importance of economic power all reflected this option. The payoff looked promising: the world’s fallen superpower would cut a deal with the aspiring superpower that symbolically, at least, would suggest that they were trading places.
Whatever the price tag, no Kremlin leader dared to accept the offer, the symbolism of which would have stirred a nationalist outcry inside Russia. This critical test for converting economic power into political power failed with Gorbachev’s belated and disappointing visit in April 1991, and again when Yeltsin cancelled his trip to Japan in September 1992. The lost islands remain a symbol of abnormality.[7]
Japan-China. The second option was to become a bridge between Beijing and Washington. After the United States imposed sanctions on China for its repression of demonstrators in June 1989, Japanese policy makers were optimistic that their greater cultural similarities with Chinese and their preference for gradual change and no open criticism would forge a lasting bond. While the United States allowed human rights concerns to shape its behavior, Japan felt that China would appreciate that it had the most to offer for its economic interests, and also trusted that China would associate itself with “Asian values” both to replace the archaic rhetoric of socialism and to assert a basis for the gradual transition away from U.S. domination.
This option faded after Emperor Akihito’s visit to China in October 1992 failed to increase mutual trust. Soon China, freed from sanctions and leaping ahead economically to such an extent that it finally replaced Japan in the world’s eye as the coming superpower, grew more nationalistic— exposing the futility of both cultural assumptions and economic leverage.
Japan’s disappointment mounted as the Chinese leadership in 1994-95 stirred nationalist sentiments targeted at Japan. Some found it incredible that a great economic power that gave vast sums in official development assistance (ODA) and presumably had considerable discretion over funds for foreign direct investment and trade could not exert pressure on a far poorer country in great need of economic development. Finally, conservatives rallied around the goal of reducing ODA, which program had been recognized by Chinese and others as a substitute for China’s forgone reparations.[8]
Economic regionalism. In its search for an international voice, Japan counted most of all on a third option: leadership over economic regionalism. The scope of the region was fluid: would it be a maritime region anchored in South Korea and Taiwan, economically dependent on Japanese firms? Or the Sea of Japan economic rim, corralling a desperate Russian Far East, cut adrift without Moscow’s subsidies? Or a broader region including Southeast Asia and anchored in Indonesia, where most Japanese ODA went? Understandably, most blueprints for regionalism incorporated China, the crown jewel in Japan’s plans for catching up with the EU and NAFTA. China was assumed to be an economically dependent country that would be drawn into a web of interdependency regardless of political posture.
These dreams were dashed. Economic stagnation at home, accompanied by high economic growth rates in China, left Japanese advocates of economic regionalism at a loss. But the problems were not just economic. It soon became clear that Japan would also have to address security concerns— North Korea’s WMD and missile programs, China’s growing threat to use force against Taiwan, China’s arms buildup, and the great-power balance in the region— before it could be optimistic again about economic regionalism. The “flying geese model” in which Japan stayed in the lead pulling others along had lost its credibility.
The Second Set of Options
From 1997 to 2001, growing despair about the state of its foreign relations drove Japan first to solidify its alliance with the United States and only then to look again for an independent voice. Compared to the earlier efforts, more sober calculations prevailed. Three more options presented themselves in the second stage of Japan’s quest. Shaken by their nation’s economic stagnation and a political impasse over domestic reforms, a succession of prime ministers sought to score foreign policy successes. Management of foreign relations shifted as each new prime minister eyed bilateral possibilities and looked within and outside of the foreign ministry for “pipes”— those who can conduct secret talks and make things happen.
The renewed search for a foreign policy breakthrough had economic motives: ensuring more secure energy lines, to reduce dependence on the Middle East, and forming free trade areas, to match those being developed in other regions of the world. But what really mattered was an outlook on security, linked to reasoning about mutual trust and questions of national identity. Japan sought acceptance as a partner and validation of its notion of normality.
Japan-Russia (part 2). The next option was to restart negotiations with the Russians, changing the tone of the talks and considering more compromise ideas. Despite excessive optimism from mid-1997 to the fall of 1998, this approach was getting nowhere until Vladimir Putin became acting president in January 2000. Then a small group of Japanese politicians and foreign ministry officials offered Russia a compromise: first, Russia would return two islands, then talks would continue about the fate of the other islands. The Japanese media would charge that this group, led by Muneo Suzuki, had only personal gain in mind, but at least some of the impetus for a compromise with Russia was undoubtedly to open a dialogue about China and, in general, to raise Japan’s voice as a great power.
Koizumi and Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka scuttled these talks when they took office, barely a month after the Irkutsk Summit of March 2001, but after Putin’s foreign policy realignment in September 2001 Koizumi showed renewed interest in Russia. Japanese leaders speak carefully about the centrality of returning the Russian-held islands, and so some version of the fourth option may still be revived.[9] But this would require a grand strategy for great-power diplomacy, something with scant support in Japan, preoccupied as it remains with its dead-end economy. Though the Koizumi-Putin summit of January 2003 concentrated on energy and North Korea, many Japanese assume that the real objective remains recovery of four islands.
Japan-South Korea. A fifth option emerged in 1998 when Kim Dae Jung agreed, in return for a written apology over Japan’s conduct in the years up to 1945, to promise that Seoul would stop playing the “historical card.” Japan anticipated that at last it would have a reliable regional partner and looked forward to co-hosting the World Cup in 2002 to solidify ties. As with China a decade earlier, Japan expected to send the emperor to South Korea for the first time. This would mark the opening ceremonies and would be the culmination of normalization in political and cultural ties to buttress strong economic ties. Hopes for a free trade area with the South rose to the foreground. But Japan’s approval of new middle school textbooks in 2001 rekindled Korean anger over the history issue and scuttled any chance of a visit by the emperor.
Tokyo did not give up hope, however, and interpreted the goodwill generated by the successful management of the World Cup as proof of a new era.[10] In July, weeks later, when talks on a free trade area started, the Japanese media was buoyant that relations with South Korea would finally provide the first big foreign policy success. The right wing, however, remained wary, fearing that their nationalist agenda would be sacrificed for regional understanding.[11] With South Korea more focused on North Korea than on Japan, it became clear to many, if not the right wing, that diplomatic progress with the North was Japan’s key to a more mature partnership with the South.
The new regionalism. While most global attention focused on Japanese-Chinese rivalry, some Japanese and Chinese strategists anticipated a new regionalism that would lock the two countries together in an economic community that could serve as a balancing force in the world. Even if eying each other nervously, China and Japan increasingly appreciate the advantages of combined regional influence. Having hesitated about regionalism through much of the 1990s, Beijing shifted its position and also adopted a “smile diplomacy” towards Japan. Both countries proceeded through ASEAN+3 and South Korea to explore regionalism. As trade grows, so do the prospects for economic regionalism, with implications for political relations and security ties. The sixth option therefore is for Japan to pursue regionalism, engaging China. Unlike the dream of regionalism in the early 1990s, when Japan’s leadership could not easily be contested, regionalism now would presumably be a union of equals.
So much attention is paid to security tensions in Northeast Asia that few foreigners who are not active in business appreciate the momentum that continues to build for regionalism. Beijing and Tokyo may go from spat to spat over economic, political, and historical issues, but they always make up. Meanwhile, they not only are rapidly becoming more integrated economically, they are also striving to stabilize these ties in a regional framework. On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of restored relations in late September 2002, many analysts wrote about the promise of capitalizing on the economic boom and creating a new framework for relations.[12] As U.S. power grows, Tokyo may join Beijing in seeing some sort of regionalism as a necessary counterweight, even if it must be framed as a part of globalization. At the ASEAN+3 summit in early November 2002, China signed a free trade agreement designed to liberalize trade within a decade.[13] Japan was scrambling to keep up.
When President Bush threw down the gauntlet to North Korea by labeling it part of the “axis of evil” in January 2002, Japan inevitably turned to the space between the United States and the other countries of Northeast Asia in its search for a foreign policy breakthrough. Security had become the region’s foremost challenge, and Japan’s secret negotiations with North Korea raised its prospects for playing an independent role in this divisive atmosphere.
East Asia’s security problems, an apparent throwback to the Cold War era, arise anew with China’s entrance into the WTO and negotiations over free trade agreements, the war on terror, and the spread of WMD. The United States, which champions globalization, knows that East Asia stands as globalization’s ultimate proving ground. The East Asian economies retain the option of a regionalism that could counter global integration and limit U.S. economic leadership more effectively than any other region could. Moreover, the great-power aspirations of China, Japan, and Russia (which must be seen as an actor in this region as well as elsewhere in Eurasia) pose a leadership test to the United States, which must enlist Japan in a joint endeavor toward globalization.
Once the Bush foreign policy team took office in 2001, all eyes turned to bilateral relations with Washington. Sino-U.S. tensions, which rose after a U.S. reconnaissance plane was detained in spring 2001, never fully calmed given the new U.S. posture toward Taiwan. North Korea’s ties with the United States and South Korea stalled when Bush refused to revive Clinton’s engagement doctrine, which had made Kim Dae Jung’s “sunshine policy” possible. Instead, the new administration emphasized strengthening ties with Japan, presumably with an extension to South Korea once a new president was elected in December 2002 to replace Kim Dae Jung. (That hope died when Roh Moo Hyun was elected amid an outpouring of anti-Americanism by young Koreans.)
In a seeming reversion to Cold War patterns, Washington frequently cajoles Tokyo to draw closer, warning it of the dangerous neighborhood it inhabits. The Bush strategy for East Asia calls for Tokyo to turn the clock back twenty years, to when the Ron-Yasu talks first recognized Japan as an “unsinkable aircraft carrier.” Labeling North Korea a member of the “axis of evil” harkens back to the moral struggle against the “evil empire” of the Soviet Union, when Japan embraced the moralistic view of evil Soviets more thoroughly than any other U.S. ally. Media outrage over the fall 2002 admission of the earlier abduction of Japanese citizens provoked condemnations of Pyongyang and rekindled memories of the 1998 missile test over Japanese territory. Japanese-U.S. relations were bolstered by the shared sense of indignation after 9/11 and North Korea’s acknowledgment that it was developing nuclear weapons in defiance of past promises, and Japan’s quiet support for the U.S. position on defending Taiwan, along Japan’s vital southern sea lanes.
The Bush administration has also stated its goal of outright containing China as a military power— its National Security Strategy declares that the United States will counter all challenges to its military supremacy,[14] including any Chinese arms buildup that threatens U.S. superiority. Washington no doubt hopes to assure Japan that it does not have to engage in a costly arms race with China or turn to nuclear weapons as a precaution. Japan, anxious to trim huge budget deficits in difficult economic times, may welcome this affirmation of the status quo by not begrudging bases for U.S. troops— a logistical asset in times of forward deployment, and a back-up to U.S. military force that counts in the overall pressure against China. The U.S. presence reassured Japan as North Korea’s tone grew more belligerent in early 2003.
The Bush administration is willing to accept adjustments in Japan’s past role to reflect global and regional changes. Where economic ties with the Soviet Union were worrisome, Japanese investment in China and growing levels of trade are appropriate to a new mood of economic engagement. Humanitarian aid to North Korea by Japan is acceptable if it is limited and carefully monitored. Also, Tokyo must be careful to follow Washington’s lead on Taiwan, in order not to encourage a hasty declaration of full independence that would be needlessly provocative to Beijing. Recognizing that Japan seeks a more equal alliance, the United States may find ways to pay heed to symbols of equality, although it shows little inclination to compromise on setting the agenda.
However secure Japan may have been under the U.S. umbrella in the Nakasone era, the United States would be making a mistake if it thought that Japan is inclined to replay that scene. Evidence from the 1980s onwards points to growing impatience with the high level of dependence on the United States. The above review of the often frustrating shifts in Japan’s policy before 9/11 reveals a great power at a loss to expand its regional influence. Finally, the September 2002 Koizumi visit to Pyongyang, which won wide support at home and in the region, suggests a different direction for Japanese foreign policy than that preferred by the Bush administration. Through another North Korean initiative, Japan sought to revive the entire second set of options outlined above.
Japanese officials approached the September 2002 North Korea summit hopefully. Skeptical in June 2000 of Kim Dae Jung’s summit in Pyongyang, they argued that the situation had changed. The North Korean regime was in a hurry to act before Saddam Hussein was removed, which might leave it first on the “axis of evil” list, and before the December 2002 South Korean elections, when a less cooperative leader was likely to emerge. The Japanese media reported that there had been a secret overture for improved relations from Pyongyang in October 2001 and suggested that its desire had intensified after Bush’s 2002 state-of-the-union address.[15] Even the conservative Yomiuri Shimbun insisted that Japan was no mere messenger but had real negotiating power and could use its “aid card” as a bargaining chip.[16] Tokyo University professor Akihiko Tanaka explained that Koizumi’s visit could be comparable in significance to Nixon’s 1972 visit to China. After all, if the North had changed, regional politics would change. A joint resolution on historical matters similar to that approved by Kim Dae Jung in 1998 would transform the region’s historical consciousness, just as security issues were being resolved and economic cooperation expanded.[17]
Japanese initially contained their anger, then, when Kim Jong Il admitted the abduction of Japanese citizens. Some wanted to avoid looking back, while others hoped for a soft landing with the North instead of a confrontation. But the mood turned increasingly negative as Japanese worked through the shock of the human rights tragedies for the families of kidnap victims. Additional details were revealed, and the public followed closely the visits by those still alive who had been obliged to leave family members behind in North Korea. On top of these stories came news of the North’s nuclear weapons program and a standoff with the United States.
Again, Japanese leaders found what had appeared to be a promising option for a diplomatic breakthrough failing to materialize. Washington would not talk to Pyongyang until it stopped its flagrant violation of previous agreements, and Pyongyang refused to discuss the matter with anyone but Washington. Tokyo could only wait on the sidelines. Meanwhile, Pyongyang saw no need to make further compromises on the abduction issue if it could not expect a payoff. The Bush administration backed multilateral diplomacy to deal with the problem, appealing directly to Jiang Zemin when he visited Bush’s Crawford ranch in October and to Koizumi and Kim Dae Jung when they met with Bush the next day at the APEC summit in Mexico. But even if Tokyo was unlikely to lead the way, Japan could at least see the beginnings of a diplomatic opening.
Japan has yet to decide the objectives for its North Korean diplomacy. Koizumi, hoping for a continued boost in the polls and recognition within the LDP, will likely want to play a special personal role in the diplomatic process. Becoming an actor in the North Korean endgame promises to boost Tokyo’s standing with Seoul, Beijing, Moscow, and Washington, and make Tokyo a player who has to be consulted on other bilateral matters. With the Asian countries concerned about U.S. unilateralism, the United States eager for Japan’s support, and North Korea eager to identify sources of economic assistance, Japan stands in an enviable position.
The North Korean endgame has great meaning for Japan’s own quest for a symbolic end to the era begun in 1945. After all, this is the one country with which Japan has no diplomatic relations and where discussions on the legacy of the occupation are making no progress. But since the North desperately needs Japan’s money, some sort of deal just may be arrived at, and it will have implications for both the region’s security and economic integration and Japan’s national identity.
Meanwhile, the coordination of U.S.-Japanese relations is shifting venue. Diplomats in both countries, under fire for being too soft, have been obliged to yield power to the security agencies and planners. In the United States this was attenuated by the personal aura of Secretary of State Colin Powell, at least before the onset of the Iraq war. In Japan, however, a two-year reign of accusations against the foreign ministry came close to paralyzing foreign policy making.[18] Koizumi’s new cabinet has strengthened executive power over economic policy, and can be expected to do the same in foreign policy.
With the left-leaning opposition in tatters, the right wing looms as the only alternative to either a maverick or more of the musical chairs and weak leadership that preceded Koizumi. Washington should recognize the costs of confrontation with China and North Korea if it wants to see strengthened Japanese-South Korean or Russo-Japanese ties. Japan’s right-wing may say that it wants to press North Korea to end communism, to support Taiwan, and to get tougher with China over its arms buildup, but its deeper goal is to free Japan of the world order that branded it a conquered rather than a liberated state in 1945 and to reduce its dependence on the United States so as to regain full sovereignty.
The North Korean nuclear crisis had deepened by the time Secretary of State Powell visited Tokyo in late February 2003, and Japanese felt more threatened than ever by it. This was a time for Japan to draw closer to the United States, Accordingly, it supported the U.S. position in the UN Security Council on Iraq. When in danger, Japan reverts to the alliance that has protected it for more than half a century. But after the war and the North Korean crisis end, we can anticipate a renewed quest for more independence.
The Japanese right wing’s campaign against the foreign ministry shows no sign of letting up. It charged that the foreign ministry was failing to defend the country’s sovereignty and shaming Japan before the world when Chinese police entered the Shenyang consulate in May 2002 to remove North Korean refugees, and was further inflamed when Japan’s ambassador to China and other officials were only fined and not dismissed in connection with the incident.[19] In continuing to accuse North Korea, Russia, South Korea, and China of violating Japan’s sovereign rights, the Right continues to undermine the professional diplomacy vital to Japan’s present security.
The mainstream in Tokyo retains the upper hand, seeking to work with all the countries that the right wing is targeting. Koizumi has worked hard to repair frayed ties with China and boost ties with South Korea, though his third visit to the Yasukuni shrine in January 2003 caused a setback. His September visit to North Korea played well in those two nations, but that is not enough. Washington should be wary of encouraging Japan’s right wing: its nationalism is also targeted against U.S. power.
Koizumi stands simultaneously for four approaches to security. He declared his support for the U.S. war on terror after 9/11 and remains committed to a solid alliance. Yet he is also a supporter of regionalism, as seen in his January 2002 speech in Singapore calling for an East Asian community and rejecting the image of China as a threat. Moreover, in a September 10, 2002, speech in New York City, at a time when a gap was apparent between his position and that of Bush on handling Iraq, he made a strong appeal for unity in the international community and relying on the UN.[20] Finally, Koizumi has been careful to maintain his nationalist credentials, for instance, with his visits to the Yasukuni shrine, even if the dates were chosen so as to reduce the damage in the region. We should expect more of this balancing act ahead.
Japan’s quest for national identity is the key to its quest for a foreign policy option that gives it at least symbolic freedom from the U.S. global strategy. This is neither realist thinking about maximizing power in an uncertain world nor idealist thinking about achieving some principles of regional and global order. Rather, it is a perspective preoccupied with the past. While they often criticize Chinese and Koreans for dwelling on the past, it is the Japanese who may be least able to come to terms with it, as it needs to in order to “reenter Asia.”
U.S.-Japanese relations are shifting emphasis from bilateral ties to regional balancing. Washington has grown more assertive in what it seeks from Tokyo, while Tokyo focuses on its neighbors in Asia as it decides how to respond. The shift can be traced in Japan’s response to changing U.S. expectations in its relations with Moscow, Beijing, Taipei, Seoul, and Pyongyang. More U.S. consistency, more active U.S. pursuit of Japan, and even a clear U.S. tilt to Japan would not quench Japan’s yearning for balanced ties between Asia and the West.
Japanese deference toward Washington should not obscure real differences in policy preferences. Japanese perceived Japan-bashing in Clinton’s early tough trade talks and Japan-passing in the successive searches in Clinton’s second term for, breakthroughs with China and North Korea; lately it has been Japan-wooing. In each case, Tokyo had reason to doubt whether Japanese and U.S. national interests coincided. Wariness persists over whether Washington distances itself too much or draws too close, and always it is assumed that U.S. policy will pose barriers to Japan’s pursuit of its own national interest.
For its part, the United States cannot succeed in the long range by separating Japan from the Asian continent. Its strategy should be to work with Japan to develop Northeast Asian regionalism, promote Russo-Japanese relations, stabilize Sino-Japanese relations, and guide Japan and South Korea toward a soft landing in North Korea. The security alliance between the United States and Japan shows no sign of dimming the latter’s restless search for another security framework in Asia; Washington should see it as a building block to that end, over which it is well positioned to exert its influence.
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